Lamb of God Will be Taking a Long Break After This Summer
Write, record, release, tour tour tour, repeat. Write, record, release, tour tour tour, repeat. So goes the cycle for bands today, most of whom can simply not afford to take more than just a quick break between album cycles.
For Lamb of God, add in Randy Blythe’s manslaughter trial in the Czech Republic — the fines, the legal fees, the traveling back and forth, the stress, and the time of the incarceration itself — on top of the full-length book he wrote about the ordeal and the photography show he pulled together, and the guy’s barely had any time off since be was arrested in Prague in June of 2012. That’s a fucking grind.
So it’s no surprise that Blythe says Lamb of God will be taking a break after they complete the touring cycle for their most recent album Sturm Und Drang later this year so he and the rest of the band can focus on family, friends and personal projects.
In an interview with Nikki Sixx on the latter’s “Sixx Sense” radio show [transcribed by Blabbermouth], Blythe stated:
“I got out of prison and immediately went on tour, because I had five lawyers and they were just hemorrhaging money like crazy. I went from jail to home to, ten days later, being at Knotfest to home for a month or two, then out on tour with Lamb of God, then back to the Czech Republic to go to trial, found not guilty, then come home, then finish up the rest of our tour and finally end in South Africa. And then we took a little time off, but there were some changes in the organization and they started writing another record and we need to make money, so it was back in the studio. And it was back on tour again for this last record [2015’s ‘VII: Sturm Und Drang’], and that cycle is not gonna end until August or September of this year, I guess. So it’s just been, like, grinding, grinding, grinding. And when I’m not on the road, I’m working on writing and photography.”
“[These are] things that make me happy. But it’s at a point now where it’s, like, at the end of this tour cycle, it’s gonna be, like, boom, it’s time to take a break for real and concentrate more on writing and being at home with the family. It’s time for me, now, at the end of this… ‘Cause we got off, after I got done with the whole prison thing and then finishing that tour, we got off the road and then we started writing a new record, and then we recorded that record. And we didn’t tell anyone that we were recording — nobody knew. They thought we were just chilling at home, and then we go on tour before the record even comes out. We’re mixing the record on tour, and then all of a sudden, the record comes out. [People] were, like, ‘Woah! Where did the record come from?’ And it’s, like, ‘Well, we’ve been working the whole time.’ And it hasn’t stopped.”
Blythe also spoke a bit about his next book, which it sounds like will be a follow-up of sorts to the aforementioned memoir Dark Days:
“My last book, the book was about personal accountability. The story, the vehicle that I used to make that point was me going to prison and going to trial and coming out. That was just the vehicle, but the theme of it was personal accountability. The theme of my next book is going to be about perspective, because I think… Today, it’s such an almost binary world; things are either A or B in people’s belief systems. If people can change their perspective a little bit, maybe, and try and see other sides of things, maybe there wouldn’t be so much static. So the book, for me, I’m very interested in perspective. But this next book will be about surfing, travel and photography all together, and it will convey the theme of changing perspective somehow.
“My agent and my publishing company, they’re ready to give me a contract for another book, ’cause the last one was a bestseller, and they like selling books. And they’re kind of, like, ‘Give us a proposal.’ I’m, like, I wanna do it correctly, so I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Blythe told the MetalSucks Podcast in January of 2016 that he was working a novel, but this appears to be something else. Either way, Blythe’s writing is absolutely captivating and I look forward to reading it.
In any case: better go see Lamb of God on their upcoming tour with Slayer and Behemoth, ’cause if you miss it you may have to wait a while for the next opportunity.
